tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178277942307916407.post195150199075087324..comments2010-02-03T05:26:07.193-08:00Comments on Reflective Games Design Blog: What Games Can Learn From ComicsKate Holdenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239736467728498841noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178277942307916407.post-21105912398571568202010-02-03T05:26:07.193-08:002010-02-03T05:26:07.193-08:00It was a means to say the problems are specific to...It was a means to say the problems are specific to those who make it problems, not to the medium itself. <br /><br />Show don&#39;t tell applies to books as well, a character telling their history to another person as opposed to you reading about their history and events. You could devote an entire chapter or two, explaining how the character came to be, or you can spend a paragraph outlining the whole thing. Plays are exactly the same, show, don&#39;t tell is a wide concept. The difference being whether it&#39;s economical to show, if there&#39;s a time constraint (like in a play), then it might not be wise to show.<br /><br />As for the dialogue thing, I didn&#39;t say it was gone, I was saying it&#39;s less of a problem today, or more of a problem but simply less boring to watch. If you&#39;re prepared for that sort of thing, you might enjoy it, but it you were expecting to jump into the action and shoot/stab/kill some people, then lengthy dialogue will irritate you to no end.<br /><br />I couldn&#39;t imagine playing, err, I mean watching MGS without the right mindset. Like I said before, the problems you listed are only problems for people who make them problems (wut?) Webcomics can drag on for panels, but good ones can get to the point or joke nice and smoothly. Games are the same, as are comics. <br /><br />Overall, I believe that what you said IS true, games do have these problems and could benefit from solutions. But the problem isn&#39;t exclusive to game, nor is the solution exclusive to comics. I mean, most of your points could fix Heroes, lol.Elcurahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16987174282193884294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178277942307916407.post-42816400649091051262010-02-02T13:58:45.022-08:002010-02-02T13:58:45.022-08:00I wouldn&#39;t say &#39;show don&#39;t tell&#39; a...I wouldn&#39;t say &#39;show don&#39;t tell&#39; applies to EVERY medium EVER. In a play, you have to tell. You generally can&#39;t show. Shakespeare was an expert playwright because of his amazing ability to work every bit of info, even tiny nuances, into the dialogue, in a time when there was very little use of scenery or props, and all the female characters were girls. Also in a novel, you can&#39;t show there. You have to tell. So it actually IS a specific problem to visual media, and in terms of games, as I said, the question is not of showing, but of DOING.<br /><br />While the games I mentioned are relatively old, this doesn&#39;t mean the problem has gone. Dialogue still drags on. Lately I&#39;ve been playing Assassin&#39;s Creed 2, and the dialogue in that is full of stuff that&#39;s a lot of rambling without much punch, and very few characters have a distinctive &#39;voice&#39; to their dialogue. I don&#39;t feel by any means that this problem has gone away.Kate Holdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04595266655928208595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2178277942307916407.post-49658806675973501632010-02-02T12:30:53.340-08:002010-02-02T12:30:53.340-08:00Hmm, some interesting points, but you&#39;re hand ...Hmm, some interesting points, but you&#39;re hand picking the best comics to influence games, when you could just as easily pick the best games to influence comics. Some comics can be terrible, some games can be terrible, so it&#39;s not a matter so much of one learning from the other all the time. <br /><br />A good game won&#39;t need padding, though some people do like to get their money&#39;s worth. Paying £40 for a game that lasts 5 hours is going to piss a lot of people off, which is why a lot of those games have some form of MP.<br /><br />Show, don&#39;t tell applies for every medium ever, TV, movies, comics, games, this isn&#39;t an exclusive problem that one medium has and another hasn&#39;t. It all depends on how good the game/director/writer is.<br /><br />As for dialogue, the games you mentioned are pretty old, and while long dialogue segments are fine, they usually drag on if you have no visual aid or stimulus. That&#39;s why money is invested in cutscenes, so you can have lengthy talks without getting bored. In general, you won&#39;t find this problem in a lot of games, even RPGs.Elcurahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16987174282193884294noreply@blogger.com